[TriLUG] Understanding why invalid hostnames and short names resolve to my home router IP

[Igor Partola]

Well, first ping is not a great way to debug DNS. Use dig (or host if dig cannot be installed).

Second, if these domains are for IP's that your network cannot reach, your router will respond to an ICMP Echo request with "network unreachable" and you will see its IP in the response.

So give us some more concrete examples, such as what your ping command looks like, what it outputs and what dig returns for this hostname.

Igor